Browsed byMonth: November 2018

Two of America’s biggest baking brands are named after people – Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines. The former was invented by a marketing department (and whose story I have previously told), but Hines was real person.

However, he didn’t have the credentials you might have expected to be the face of such a famous food brand. He wasn’t a chef or even a keen amateur baker. He was a traveling salesman for a printing company.

There are some question marks about his taste too. In 1946 he was interviewed by Life magazine and as well as saying he liked to drink neat gin or whiskey, he also explained that he enjoyed “Mrs. Hines’s cocktail.”

What’s wrong with that you might ask until you hear the ingredients of that particular cocktail. It’s made from the juice of a watermelon pickle, a whole egg, cream, gin, grenadine, orange-blossom honey, and lime juice!

Yet Hines was for a while America foremost food critic. How did that happen?

The clue was his job. As a travelling salesman Hines did just that – he travelled. He averaged 40,000-60,000 miles a year and when on the road, he ate most of his meals in restaurants and diners. What’s more he and his wife, Florence, loved to travel on weekends and then to they often chose to eat out.

After eating all those restaurant dinners and lunches across the country and across the years, Hines had discovered where the best places to get a meal were and where you should avoid. He and Florence had an idea they start compiling a list of recommendations of their favourite restaurants in various cities and towns around the country.

They sent it to friends as Christmas gifts.

His friends loved it so much that in 1935 Hines signed a publishing deal and turned his travels into a book; “Adventures in Good Eating. Book”. He became a best seller. One of the reasons for its success was at that time in the United States, there was no interstate highway system and only a limited number of restaurant chains, except for those in large, populated areas. Therefore, travellers depended on meals at local restaurants and a book of honest recommendations was welcomed.

In 1938 he released a second, companion book; “Lodging for a Night”. This reviewed hotel and motels and suggested where travellers might like to stay.

In the 1940s, Hines the started a newspaper food column, “Adventures in Good Eating at Home”, which appeared in newspapers across the US three times a week (on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday). The column featured restaurant recipes, adapted for home cooks, that he had collected during his nationwide travels.

Hines was now one of the country’s most trusted food critics.

A roadside sign advertising Duncan Hines’ Adventures in Good Eating is on display at the Kentucky Museum at Western Kentucky University.

Moving from recipes to products was therefore a logical next step, and while Hines is most famous as a cake-mix, the first foodstuff bearing his name was actually an ice cream. The Lehigh Valley Cooperative Farmers dairy of Allentown, PA, started churning out Hines-branded ice cream in the summer of 1950. The treat was an instant success and helped convince Hines that licensing his name was a viable business strategy.

In 1952, Duncan Hines made his first move into bakery products introducing Duncan Hines’ bread in partnership with Durkee’s Bakery Company of Homer, New York.

A year later, Hines sold the right to use his name and the title of his book to Roy H. Park, forming Hines-Park Foods, which in turn licensed the name to several food-related businesses.

The cake mix license was sold to Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha, Nebraska, which developed and sold the first Duncan Hines cake mixes. In 1957, Nebraska Consolidated Mills sold their cake mix business to Procter & Gamble who expanded the brand to a national market, adding more related products.

The mixes were a huge success and now almost every American knows his name but few know the back story.

And the moral is that trust can be earned in all sorts of ways and once earned is incredibly valuable for brands

The soon to be nonagenarian Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney are synonymous. However the tale of the birth of Mickey is full of other interesting characters and some lovely little plot twists.

Oswald and Charles
The story of the world’s most famous mouse starts with a rabbit – Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald was a cartoon character created by the Disney studio for film producer Charles Mintz, who distributed the resulting films through Universal Studios.

In early 1928, with the series doing good business, our hero Walt Disney goes to our soon-be-exposed-as-a-‘villain’ Charles Mintz and asks for an increase in the budget.

Much to his surprise and anger Walt’s request isn’t met with enthusiasm. In fact he is asked by Mintz to take a 20 percent budget cut! Mintz points out that not only do Universal own the rights to the Oswald character but that Mintz had already signed most of Disney’s current employees to new contracts.

Walt refuses a new deal and only returns to work to produce the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owes Mintz.

The fight back beings
Disney dusts himself down and decides to start again. He sets up the new Disney Studio, where he is joined by a few of those who have remained loyal to him. They included animator Ub Iwerks, an apprentice artist, Les Clark and Wilfred Jackson an animator who would go onto become an arranger, composer and director.

One thing Disney makes sure of, having learnt from his recent experiences, is that he should own all rights to the characters produced by his company.

Ub and Hugh
So Disney asks Ub to start work on developing new characters and Ub tries sketches of various animals including dogs and cats, but Walt rejects them. Ub then draws and likes a female cow and a male horse but these too are rejected, though they would later turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar.

A male frog is also rejected. It would later show up in Ub Iwerks’ own ‘Flip the Frog’ series.

In the end the inspiration comes from Walt’s past and from a tame mouse which would visit him at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City.

It was there in 1925, that Hugh Harman another animator drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney. Ub comes across those drawings and is inspired to develop a new mouse character, which Walt loved.

Mortimer and Lillian
Walt named the new character “Mortimer Mouse” and while his wife, Lillian, loves the character she hates the name. She convinces Walt to change it. The new name was “Mickey Mouse”.

Al

The first film featuring Mickey is ‘Plane Crazy’. It isn’t the immediate success everyone hopes for. It is made as a silent film and given a test screening on May 15, 1928, but doesn’t impress the audience and fails to pick up a distributor.

In the meantime Walt goes to see The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson. He comes out inspired and commits himself and his team to producing the first fully synchronized sound cartoon. This film is ‘Steamboat Willie’ which features not only Mickey but Minnie Mouse too. It proves to be an enormous success becoming the most popular cartoon of its day.

Walt
Walt is involved in all aspects of the film development, co-directing it but in one regard it is all him. Mickey is voiced by Walt himself, a task in which Disney takes great personal pride.

It’s a role he will continue to play until 1946, by which time he was becoming too busy with running the studio. However, he will still do occasional stints and performances.

The return of Mortimer
Mortimer makes a comeback as our second ‘villain’. In 1936, in ‘Mickey’s Rival’ the world is finally introduced to a character called Mortimer Mouse.

Where Mickey is short, rounded, sincere and a little clumsy, Mortimer is tall, has whiskers and a much more pronounced snout, complete with two prominent front teeth. An appearance that for some makes him look more like the ‘rat’ he is shown to be.

In the film Mortimer gate-crashes a picnic Mickey and Minnie are having and starts sweet-talking Minnie, who initially enjoys all the attention. Mickey is naturally jealous. Things change however when Mortimer’s antics annoy a bull, and Minnie’s life is put in danger. Mortimer flees, leaving our hero Mickey (and his car) to save the day and his beloved Minnie.

Happy birthday
Since then Mickey has gone on from strength to strength and continues to be a huge success. In 1978, he becomes the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and on November 18th 2019 he will reach the grand old age of 90.

He has a place in many people’s hearts but none more so than Walt himself who said “I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”

Sharing knowledge can a great gift and a great pleasure, there is the wonder of learning something new and the joy of passing on what you have experienced and learnt.

Sharing knowledge is the mission of LID Publishing, who have been kind, some would say foolish enough to publish a couple of my books (including The Prisoner and The Penguin) and together we’re in the middle of producing of a third.

LID Publishing are commemorating 25 years in publishing since their ‘beginning in Spain’ in 1993 and to celebrate the milestone they have published a book entitled “250 Insights”.

It is a compilation of insights drawn from the work they have done together with authors, thought leaders, and experts in their field. I’m delighted and honoured to have been included – you’ll find me as Insight no.5. Congratulations and thanks to them